It happened again. I’m once again having what I call the Halloween Hangover. It’s not from booze, though. It’s from high expectations and lofty hopes!
Every Halloween, it’s always the same thing. I get the house all decorated, complete with outdoor lights to illuminate the pumpkins and witches and ghosts so the little trick or treating goblins will know we are in the spirit and at our house there’s candy to be had!
And I buy the good candy, too! None of the off-brand Dollar Store stuff for us! No way…I get the Snickers and Kit Kats and Reese’s!
I am the Queen of Halloween on our block! (That may be because we are the only ones who actually decorate for Halloween on our block, but that does NOT negate my crown!)
So every year on Halloween night, I have spent at least a day or two convincing my husband, Marty, to get into a costume, and while he does it, he’s not exactly thrilled about it.
The dog, Charlie, wears something that’s a nod to the season, but he is DEFINITELY not happy about it and likely plots to poop in my shoes.
Poor Copper, the cat, runs under the bed the first time the doorbell rings and typically stays there the rest of the night until we come to bed. So that’s the setting at our house on Halloween night.
This year, Marty was a skeleton, Charlie was a very irritated Count Barkula, and Copper was… yes… under the bed. And then there’s me…I usually dress as a sexy witch because Halloween is the one night of the year you can be as sleazy as you want and call it a costume. I have a killer witch’s hat, too.
Right by the door was this HUGE bowl FILLED with candy, and I do mean FILLED! Then… back in the kitchen…were THREE more HUGE bags of candy! You can bet when we called it a night and were done with the festivities, none of those bags were open.
When we first moved here almost 21 years ago, we had trick or treaters. Even though we aren’t on the main roads of our neighborhood, there were enough kids to go around. I’ve always gotten too much candy, but back then we had enough kids I could get rid of most of it…the last few who came to the door got handfuls of the stuff. If their parents knew, they may have run us out of town. But those kids are grown now and have moved away.
That’s a pesky fact Marty likes to remind me of every single year when I go on the candy run.
“Remember, Julia… there’s no need to buy a lot of candy…think about last year…we only had 20 kids and we were giving away candy through Thanksgiving!”
“I knoooow Marty…I promise…this year it’ll be just one big bag! And maybe a small one…or maybe two big ones because you really never know…” By this time Marty had left the room, shaking his head and mumbling something I probably don’t want to hear.
But I fully intended to keep that promise. I truly did. It’s just when I got to the store this time and found the bag I wanted, the Reese’s and Kit Kats were together but the Snickers were in another bag with other candy. And while I pondered this predicament, a little girl with cat ears and whiskers painted on her face ran up the aisle and was all excited that she found Hershey’s and Baby Ruth’s. She hopped up and down in glee and asked me if I “could please ma’am reach that bag of Baby Ruth’s and the Hershey’s” for her.
Of course I did and she grabbed them with a breathy thank you and ran to find her mom. So that made me wonder if times have changed. Last year the Reeses, Kit Kats, and Snickers were all the rage, but maybe this year the tide had turned. Maybe I’ve been so wrapped up in myself I hadn’t noticed “kids today” were eating Baby Ruth’s and Hershey’s?
Oh my goodness… what if I bought the wrong candy and then the kids talked about it at school? What if all the first and second graders formed a coup and we got on their hit list. Our house will be forever branded as “the house that gave out the WRONG CANDY!”
When I tried to explain this to Marty as I was carrying in four gargantuan bags of various candies, he wasn’t convinced.
“WHAT are we going to do with all that if the kids don’t come?”
“Oh let’s just think positive, Marty…if you buy the candy, the kids will come.”
But they didn’t, and once again, Marty was right. We had about 25 kids come by. And all of them were so polite…gingerly taking one or two pieces!
“No, no,” I exclaimed to each of them! “Here… take more…please take MORE!” A couple times, as I was shoving handfuls of candy into the bags, I noticed more than a few parents giving me what could have only been the “stink-eye,” but it was desperate measures for desperate times!
Now it’s almost a week with the candy and believe me…it has GOT to GO! When I stepped on the scales this morning, I was three pounds heavier! And the bedroom trash can looks like it came from Hershey, PA!
So far, Marty hasn’t said “I told you so,” but it’s coming…every time he passes the candy bowl he chuckles to himself, so I KNOW it’s coming! It’s just a matter of time.
I’m just saying…
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